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Dust acoustic wave Triangular lattice Bispectral plot
Photograph of dust acoustic waves, from a Q-machine experiment in a lab of Professor D'Angelo and Professor Merlino. The white bands are concentrations of dust particles, which become charged when they are introduced into a plasma. An acoustic wave propagating in the horizontal direction causes compression and rarefaction of this suspension of charged dust particles. Photograph of charged microspheres suspended in a plasma, from Professor Goree's group. The microspheres acquire a large charge, and repel one another, so that they arrange themselves in a regular pattern, like atoms in a crystalline lattice. Here the "bonds" between nearest neighbors are drawn as pink lines. Bispectral plot of ion waves in a plasma in Professor Skiff's lab. This kind of plot is a scheme for detecting the presence of nonlinear interactions between waves at different frequencies, when seeking an understanding of turbulence.
Alfven wave Substorm simulation  
A snapshot of an Alfvén wave in Professor Kletzing's experiment using the Large Plasma Device. The colors correspond to the wave's magnetic field strength, which is modulated in a pattern determined by the experimenter's choice of the phases of sinusoidal voltages applied to each element of the wave launcher. Magnetic reconnection simulation, from Dr. Ma. There are many natural physical systems, such as the solar wind downstream from the Earth, where magnetic field lines cross in an X-point. At this X-point, shown in red here, the electric current is intense and magnetic field lines rearrange themselves in a process called reconnection.  


Last updated July 25, 2003.
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